Here he lies; no one knew his worth...
I am sorry to announce that, at some time undetermined as of yet, Masculinity fell into a deep coma and passed away. I am sure that this comes as a shock to you all; Masculinity has always exhibited strength and resilience and seemed almost invincible to the trials of life. Even his passing, which many would have assumed to be a swift end in a blaze of glory, is something of a jolt; no one would have expected his end to be quiet and unnoticed.
Some of you, I am sure, are indifferent to his passing. Either you have never had the opportunity to meet Masculinity and be influenced by him or you have never understood the value of his ideals. Whatever the cause, however, now is not the time for sullen or crude remarks on his behalf; it is the time to pay respects to him and to remember him as he was before he fell into this crippling coma and perhaps to understand why he has gone. We owe him that, at least.
He came from humble beginnings. Orphaned at birth, Masculinity and his twin sister, Femininity, were forced to fend for themselves in an often cruel and unforgiving world. Together they forged ahead, surviving against terrible odds while at the same time searching for their lost Father and Mother. Masculinity promised to protect and provide for his sister, while Femininity swore to comfort and care for her brother in return, a partnership that did them well in attempting to tame the fierce world around them.
Of course, no pair of siblings is without their rivalries and scuffles, and they were no exception. Masculinity was at many times an overprotective brother and, assuming that he knew what was best for his sister, made many decisions about her well-being without her imput. Femininity was offended by this gesture, and continuously tried to prove herself to her brother, showing that she could take care of herself and do things without needing his help. He, in turn, was threatened by her displays, feared that if she did not need him any more, she might leave him. In order to prevent that, he placed further restrictions on her in an attempt to make her more dependent on him, something Femininity would come to resent. Masculinity also had some issues controlling his temper, and would sometimes take his anger out on his sister, while Femininity took great pride in vexing her easily confused brother. However, no matter how much the pair fought, the fact remains that they were brother and sister and deeply cared for each other. In an instant, one would kill any who attempted to harm the other.
Masculinity grew stronger as the years passed. He built an amazing world for his sister, and dedicated much of his time either defending her from enemies or crafting fantastic works of art in her name and image. He devoted himself heart and soul to her for she was the most graceful and beautiful thing he could find in this world and loved her passionately.
Unfortunately for both, Masculinity was never the best communicator, and many of his actions, however loving the intentions, were misunderstood by Femininity. She grew angry over time and demanded to be heard for herself and to be allowed to provide for herself. Although he still felt threatened by this, he loved his sister too much to refuse this time; Femininity began speaking up more and spent time outside the house for the first time in ages. Instead of having everything brought to her, she went out and worked for it just as her brother did, although she was often compensated less because Masculinity still wanted her at home. Femininity became as outraged as she had been at having to stay at home, and pushed her brother to let her be treated equally when she worked. It took time, but she managed to achieve near-equal status outside the house while maintaining her position of glory within it. This led to further rivalry between the twins that escalated to an unprecedented level.
Now, I do not want to insult the living any more than the dead, or to bring false accusations against anyone, but I feel it is important that you all know how Masculinity died; it is crucial for the grieving process.
I cannot speculate as to the reasoning behind it; perhaps she feared a return to her previous position, or maybe it was an accident of unbounded Macbeth-ish ambition or possibly she was not even aware of what she was doing. What I do know, however, is that some time not long after her rise in wordly status, Femininity began poisoning her brother. It was a slow process, one that brought Masculinity closer to an empty shell each day that passed. After a while, his body could not support consciousness, and he fell into a coma. From there, the rest lies before you.
I do not condemn Femininity; do not get me wrong about that. I am sure that in her eyes, she was doing what was best, and I still have nothing but respect for her. Now she is struggling to support herself entirely on her own and maintaining all that her brother has built. She is doing an amazing job of holding things together, mind, but the fact of it is: twins as close as these two are not meant to be cut apart like this. Femininity cannot exist long without Masculinity, as Masculinity cannot live without his beloved Femininity. Even now, the effect of this loss can be seen as Femininity searches across great distances for anyone who so much as looks similar to her late brother, only to be disappointed in the lack of replacements.
I ask in this time of mourning that the older generations not let the memory of Masculinity be lost. Tell your children and grandchildren of him and never let him be forgotten. Perhaps if we can keep his spirit alive, he will no longer be truly lost.
And with that said, I raise my glass to...Masculinity.
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Genius. :-D
Sincerely,
Ashleymarie Sey DeBondt
visit my art website Behind the Brush
or for my photographic work my deviantart page
You think equality means the death of something?
I'm not sure if I understand this.
I'm sorry if it wasn't clear. I fully support equality for men and women; my problem rests in the recent female quashing of masculinity in American culture.
It's evident almost everywhere. We have not had a war favored by the public in over fourty years. It's easy to say that the motives behind the war were not justifiable, but were we to be fighting Hitler himself, the American people would be shouting for pacifism. People have always known war was a violent and brutal thing, but that it was also necessary for the good of everyone.
Hazing is also a clear sign. I'm not talking about ones where groups beat up new members or stick pinecones where the sun doesn't shine, but good ol' fashioned male bonding. The Great Mother of America was recently outraged upon finding out that Her sons were running around in the woods naked (Marines), teabagging and elephant walking (college students) and other acts of male bonding that have been crucial in masculinizing groups of guys. Bonding like that used to go as far even to simulated or actual sex within the group. Homoerotic as it is, it has always been a masculinizer, making the boys into men, something that Great Mother is terrified of. Empty nest syndrome has gone national...
And think also, when was the last time you've seen a truly brawny man? Was he on a roll of paper towels? The image of manliness has been defamed as "bear-ish" and disgusting, to be replaced by the perfect manicurization and cultivation of guys at a metrosexual level (just without the lisp).
These are just a few examples of how masculinity has diminished over the past few decades; I'm sure if you look, you'll be able to see countless more yourself. As I said, I support women's lib, but the fact remains that eternally intertwined polar opposites like masculinity and femininity are powerless without each other. Perhaps the decline in masculinity is one of the reasons why, over the past few decades, America has slowly descended from its position of glory. Just speculating...
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
I think you have confused parts of masculinity with parts of patriachy. You can have masculinity live while patriachy dies. And I also disagree that either are dying or nearing death.
The patriachal society is alive and well.
Women are still treated more as things than men are even close as being treated. In our society, a women's beauty is carried as more important for her personally, economically, politically, and socially than it does for a man. She is constantly told she is inferior by a constant bombardment of artificially beautiful images. When she is sexually harassed, the case for sexual harassment is determined if she "provoked" it or not from men, something that is is measured through the eyes of men instead of the eyes of women.
Women are so insecure and undervalue themselves that recruiters refer a way to weed out women for a job classified is by posting the exact same job at a higher salary.
I am a far cry from a metrosexual. Some would even call me a slob.
However, masculinity doesn't mean that one cannot be self-conscious of one's image. It isn't that masculinity is dying, but that self-consciousness, insecurities, and emphasis on image over substance is now increasing all around in our society.
It is also another indication that a patriachal society is pervasive and thriving in our society when femininity is by default assumed to be naturally insecure and excessively self-conscious while it is somehow unnatural for men to be so as well.
Few people stop and think that maybe these traits, as they are prevalent today, are not natural at all, but a product of constant conditioning by a culture.
Citizen Press Revolution
PS: If you are curious, I recommend reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.
I think there's some kind of misunderstanding somewhere in this. My support of masculinity and views of it are completely separate from the idea of patriarchy, and the idea that I would support partriarchy (or matriarchy in its other extreme) flies in the face of my main point: that the masculine and feminine are necessarily equal and co-dependent, neither superior or more powerful than the other.
The ties to self-consciousness and insecurity is a bit of a stretch....Men and women alike have always been self-conscious and insecure from time to time, particularly men with their virility and women with their beauty, although neither of those are exclusive to one or the other, and the trait is not exclusively masculine or feminine but a product of society itself.
I also find interesting the notions you bring up about women being viewed as mere "things" and inferior by our "patriarchal society". You are clearly a man, and as such I am going to assume that you've lived your whole life as a man and have always held that male role. I, however, spent about eighteen years as female. It is a long story, so I will leave it at this: I have experience with both worlds, the female and the male, and my experience, as well as those of my female and male friends and acquaintences, tells a different tale.
Women still maintain their power as sex-figures and symbols of beauty and sensuality. This power seems exclusive to women in our society; for example, you would never see a man able to charm his way out of a ticket on account of his good looks. Even male icons that are revered for their sexiness and hot appearances still pale in comparison to the female ones, at least as far as public recognition, adoration and accolades.
In addition to the physical, sensual powers of women, they now also have the ability to achieve professional success equal to, and even sometimes greater than, their male counterparts. Consider such accomplished professionals as Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric, Martha Stewart (even after prison, she can maintain success), Brenda Barnes (President, chairman and CEO of Sara Lee), Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Meg Whitman (President and CEO of ebay), Amy Domini (creator and manager of the $1.5 billon Domini Social Equity fund), Anne Lauvergeon (CEO of Cogema), Mitchell Baker (manager of Mozilla Firefox), Melissa Etheridge and, of course, Oprah Winfrey. All of these women and more have built extremely successful careers based not on any form of objectification or physical appearance, but by a combination of talent, luck and hard work--the same requirements needed for a man to become successful. Each of these women have been featured in Time's 100 Most Successful People, many of them more than once. Oprah has actually been listed four times, equal with Bill Gates; no one has been included more than these two people, widely acknowledged as the world's most successful man and woman.
Women have the choice to use either skill or looks or a combination of the two to create a life for herself and the additonal opportunity to be the center of a family, the mother and caregiver of her children (should she choose to have them). Men do not have the option to get by on looks alone; he must have some talent or some skill or some intelligence. When considering that, it is hard to say that our society is still a patriarchal one. Even though there has not been a woman president (more from lack of women running on the ballots than anything as an overwhelming majority polled would elect a competent female president to office; some have speculated the possibility of Hillary Clinton being the first, and unless there are much more appealing and competent male candidates, it is likely that she will be if she runs), it is clear that women have the most options in society and bear a great power within it. Women themselves often underestimate that power, possibly because they are still adjusting to it, and that tends to be more of an obstacle to a woman's success than any social superiority of men (which there clearly is not).
My expression of disappointment at the waning of masculinity in our culture has nothing to do with this at all as masculinity is not about dominance of the male over the female, but about characteristics, thoughts and behaviors that now are being painted as either too aggressive, too gross, too impulsive, too vulgar or libidinous, or in other ways undesirable, to be replaced instead by a feminized version of men. Although women at first were glad for this metrosexualized version of their men (as some probably still are) as they tend to be cleaner and neater, more civil and composed even under intense circumstances, more sensitive and concerned with the emotional concerns of others and in many other ways brought to a more feminine manner, it is the general concensus of the women I have known that men as a whole seem much less like men. Women who are less upset or vocal about that sort of change have at least voiced complaints about the loss of chivalry between men and women.
This is from my experience and that of people I know; your experience with the dynamics of masculinity and femininity may vary greatly depending on where you live.
Also, the growing trend of businesses and the media (not men because each man has a little difference in his tastes in women; some might prefer thin and blonde while others may want a plump brunette, etc.) to criticize female figures and appearances, to the point of triggering eating disorders in some girls, is also largely connected with a rise in women being hired in the companies and media sources and rising through the ranks in advertising/marketing, management, etc. To ignore that trend would be a half-baked analysis of the problem. The point I am making is this: women know the female mind and psyche; they know what will make their hearts beat fast with amorous feeling, what will make them angry or depressed, what will make them jealous, etc. Because of that, they also know what will make women more likely to spend money, and the chief products of that knowledge are marketing campaigns built on the female desire for physical perfection. Those two are greatly interrelated and largely dependent on each other. Men have also had the same sort of marketing techniques used to promote sales, but they have been much less effective and far-reaching than that for women, with the possible exception of Viagra-like substances and member enlargement products, though men are less likely to openly voice their usage of them.
I hope I have managed to explain my concerns a bit more understandably and that there is no confusion about the enormous difference between masculinity and the social construct of patriarchy.
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
La vie l'homme! ...We raise our glass you bet your ass!
Well said, well said.
In a day where metrosexuality is the norm, it is nice to see someone understand the negative consequences.
Ladies want a REAL MAN who does REAL MAN stuff...but then...isn't a MAN when they don't want HIM to be.
I mean, seriously girls...it's tough these days. We aren't allowed to be what we're supposed to be because it's not acceptable in society anymore. But then you throw it in our faces because, deep down, you want a real MAN to take care of you.
There's this young guy out of Fort Smith, Arkansas named Bradley Hathaway, and he wrote a poem called "I am a MANLY MAN". I suggest everyone read this poem. He has great insight into this subject. It fits both sides. The MAN that we are, and the MAN that we want to be.
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities ; Oscar Wilde
I know that the whole metrosexually thing is in, but I'm tired of seeing men more feminine then me. Where are all the men? I want to see a man with more hair or his body then me!
ccons003 is one of the coolest people alive.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
i never really thought about it but you right
very well said
If so, very nicely played. I thought this was serious until I got to your response to a comment in which you described "simulated or actual sex" in hazing rituals as a "masculinizer, making the boys into men."
For my peace of mind, please tell me this is a joke...
The sex part was just to give a bit of history on it. I don't think that kind of pedasteric sex or simulated sex is a good thing for our society; we've evolved beyond it. However, other common "hazing" rituals that were in practice until the past couple of years, although strange to an outsider's view, do bring a kind of male kinship and masculinization that guys just don't really get anywhere else. That's partially why if you take, for example, the case of the Marines that was publicized some time ago where they had been caught running through the woods completely naked, the participants who were later interviewed weren't upset by the activity, but that it got out to the public, saying that it was just a bit of good fun.
Not all hazing is good, as some violent cases have come to light that is extremely clear, but mild, routine forms of hazing (like paddling, a common example, and often done fully clothed) actually have a positive impact on most participants involved. It places an emphasis on the group and the bond and kinship between the "brothers" being placed above the individual and the alienated consumerism our society tends to produce, which is important from time to time, particularly in groups that depend on each other constantly and require deep loyalty like in the military or certain kinds of sports groups or fraternities as well.
And I know that sort of thing isn't for everyone, but it does have it's benefits as a rite of passage, a form of tough love that bonds guys as brothers and a way to let off steam...
(I'm really sorry if I scared you with the sex comment. As I said, I was just giving a brief bit of history on the subject. Sometimes I don't express myself quite the way I intend to, and I apologize for that. If I still haven't explained it in a more coherent and understandable way, let me know and I'll try to figure out how to word this kind of thing better...)
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
I appreciate the clarification. I completely understand where you're coming from with not necessarily being able to express thoughts just as you intend. I have that problem quite a bit, which is why I haven't attempted to write my own blog yet!
I think you touch on a very interesting subject with this blog and I plan to respond more thoroughly in the next day or so. For now it's time for sleep...
Realize something, the day our mothers, aunts, cousins, female whoevers starting burning bras and hanging up aprons etc...WE KILLED MASCULINITY! Killed it! DEAD! I like chivalry. I like a -man- who is dedicated to treating me like a lady, who can appreciate a woman who wants to be a wife and not his VP or Prez. And you're right hun...men do not act like men anymore. It's like it's some kind of disease to be burly and have calloused hands and to open a door for women. BUT women brought it upon themselves when they decided to become overly independent. Men are afraid to do any of the things we supposedly miss because they fear being accused of being sexist.
there is a difference between being sexist and being a man. A man can be a man with out being sexist. I can be independent, and have a man open a door for me. that's not being sexist. people just need to know the difference. then men can be men and women can be independent.
How can masculinity be dead I am alive and I am masculine. I am offended by your stereotypical definition of masculinity. I am a man. I build. I wrestle, punch and kick other men for sport and honor. I spit. I scratch. I am hairy. I am an honorable and chivalrous man. I open doors and pull chairs. I am also a respectful man. I am respectful of my fellow men and of women. A woman may be powerful. A woman may be sexy. That makes me no less masculine. Do you want to know what makes me masculine? The fact that I have never questioned it. I like to cook and I'm a man. I'm messy and I don't care. I'm still a man. This little rant of mine may not make sense to you, but I can't understand how anybody could say masculinity is dead and that makes it hard to respond. If you define masculinity as dim-witted, domineering and only showing physical strength then I don't think masculinity is dead. You're just looking in the wrong place.
P.S. I've recently read that as a masculine guy I am incapable of communicating well. If that is the case, I would love to discuss this further and try to clarify my ideas. Send me a message.
I wasn't trying to imply that masculinity is "dim-witted, domineering and only showing physical strength", and I'm sorry if that's what you got out of my message. What I'm saying is that mainstream society is now beginning to view masculinity as just that. While women have risen to great respect (something I don't have any problem with and if anything feel has been a long time coming), men have become the devalued and dirty part of society. Boys aren't encouraged to be masculine and take after their fathers anymore, they're tied much more closely to their mothers.
I myself am very masculine and embody the very same traits you boasted, but those traits tend to be viewed as bad nowadays. Punching and kicking and wrestling for sport and honor is barbaric; spitting and scratching is dirty and hair is gross (except in the right places); chivalry is disrespectful of women. You and I both know that's nonsense, but if you look around at society, that's the message being given out.
I hope this makes my point a bit clearer: I'm not saying that masculinity itself is dead per se, but that the social acceptance of masculinity is crumbling and, in a sense, dying. It's not as acceptable to be a "real man" when there's the metrosexual image society so clearly prefers. (Not that I'm saying it's bad to be metrosexual, just that more masculine men shouldn't suffer their respect as men because of it.)
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"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Live one day at a time, emphasizing ethics rather than rules."
-Wayne Dyer
Masculinity is not dead, it just had a little plastic surgery. Its face has changed but its concept is still the same.